Relationship between an annual examination to assess student knowledge and traditional measures of academic performance

The Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy requires that all students take an annual examination regarding curricular performance in the Doctor of Pharmacy program. The present investigation assessed the convergent validity of this annual multifaceted written examination with other markers of success in fourth-ear pharmacy students. The concept of convergent validity implies that a construct should be correlated with theoretically similar constructs. Convergent validity of the annual examination was examined by correlating the results obtained on the annual examination with other measures thought to be predictors of student performance. Such measures include final grade point average, pre-pharmacy grade point average, PCAT scores, and the possession of an undergraduate degree prior to entering pharmacy school. Results indicated that the annual examination correlated significantly with final grade point average and students' composite PCAT percentile scores, but not with pre-admission grade point average or obtaining an undergraduate degree prior to beginning pharmacy school.